Kurt Sutter's Sons of Anarchy is often an exercise in frustration, especially lately, and "To Thine Own Self" serves as the perfect example of every reason why that is.
Pictured above is one of only two moments I would venture to call a highlight in "Argentina," the second straight episode to fall flat on its face for me. It says a lot about the episode that I was reduced to ogling Jamie in her bikini in order to get some enjoyment out of the episode. While Dexter is nearing the home stretch of the season, it's doing so in a slow, limping fashion. Part of me wishes the network would take it out back to the shed and put it down, forgoing the eighth and final season that I can't see being any good at this rate, but I know there's no chance of that happening. So it looks like I have another season (plus these last four episodes) of let downs to anticipate.
Following this week's episode of Sons of Anarchy, I was left with more of a feeling of uncertainty than usual. Each member of the main cast has gone down a path with an end point that neither we nor them will know until they reach it.
"Chemistry" is what we're told that Dexter and Hannah have. He can't explain it himself, but it's there. Or so he tells us, his insatiable need to jump her bones attesting to that fact. Nothing he can do, say, or think will stop it from happening, it being the two of them having enough forced sexual tension to inch Dexter slowly into Twilight territory.
This week's episode of Sons of Anarchy was low on surprises with its major plot threads all going in their natural and expected directions. In the grand scheme of the season though, this was a necessary evil to set the stage for the final episodes, but it left viewers with what could be called little more than a transitional episode.
Harry, Dexter's adoptive father, may be long dead and now nothing more than a mental projection of Dexter's super-ego, but that doesn't stop me feeling sorry for him in "Do the Wrong Thing."
In my reviews of Sons of Anarchy thus far this season, I've constantly been taking issue with this and that. While I don't go back on what I said entirely, those complaints have been moderately trivialized by this week's episode, "Ablation." What's important about the remaining episodes is the direction in which we're headed, not how it was that we got there.
"Swim Deep," Dexter's latest episode, continues what's expected to be its focus all season, which would be questioning everything that Dexter, Deb, and others had thought they knew. Its characters believe themselves to be on the straight and narrow until they're confronted with a crossroads, almost like cross-hairs centered on them, and a decision to make.
Earlier this month, we received the first official photo from the upcoming A Good Day to Die Hard. The following day, filmgoers got their first glimpse at footage of the film in the form of a teaser trailer. Now, weeks later, we have the first of what one assumes to be many posters via First Showing.
Well, isn't that a coincidence? Watching "Toad's Wild Ride," that same question kept popping up in my head. It all felt too convenient, too perfect, and I could see Sutter scheming just as much as I could Clay.
